


Hell on the Hide

by therev



Category: The Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: Alternate Reality, Cowboys, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-22
Updated: 2009-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-05 00:44:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/35889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/therev/pseuds/therev
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Somewhere in the American West, circa 1869.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hell on the Hide

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mrkinch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrkinch/gifts).



Sean came in long after sunset. He'd seen the smoke rising for the last half mile.

The kitchen was lit low but the stove fire kept the evening chill out. Viggo stood over something that sizzled, back to the door, but acknowledged Sean's entrance with a nod over his shoulder. He was barefoot, bare-headed, with a dish towel thrown over one shoulder.

Later, washed, bare-headed himself but besocked, Sean joined Viggo at the table.

"Town still standin'?" Viggo asked after a while of quiet eating.

"As much as it ever has," Sean replied.

A slow nod. "Mare foaled this morning. Pretty little colt. Black as anything."

Sean grinned over his coffee. "I thought she'd have it while I was gone. Just like her to be so stubborn."

"Can't all of us shut down our processes awaiting your return," Viggo said without venom, but Sean knew the frown in Viggo's voice that didn't touch his lips.

Table cleared save the coffee, Sean sat again, and the kitchen was quiet but for the occasional sound of swallowing, and the noises of the stove fire dying.

"Came by Ballard's on my way," Sean said. "He's putting up one them new wire fences."

"Devil's deed?"

"Devil's rope. Got points on it, wicked looking things, sharp and angry."

Viggo made a noise, tilted his head in concern, brown hair falling over his eyes to darken his face. "Sounds like hell on hide."

"Hard to see, tangles like a sonofabitch."

Viggo nodded, finished his coffee and pushed the cup aside, jaw set in a way Sean knew too well as a signal to the end of any idle conversation.

Sean waited. He wasn't waiting to be asked, just waiting for Viggo to look at him. When the silence stretched long enough, dusk-blue eyes finally regarded him, and Sean extended his hand, palm up, across the table.

"You surprised me is all," he said by way of apology, watching Viggo's face for acknowledgement. Viggo only shrugged. But when Sean insisted Viggo took the hand Sean offered.

"I surprised myself, you know," Viggo said finally, watching their hands where they lay on the tabletop, "that I had the guts."

Sean smiled, pulling Viggo's arm to shake him from his reverie, "And I myself, that I didn't." He pulled Viggo to him then, both came out of their chairs and stood close.

"It's a wonder nobody got shot," Viggo said gently, not quite touching the grey-red stubble on Sean's chin, "all that surprising."

Sean laughed, then sobered. "Do you think we... that two men can really love each other?"

Viggo didn't flinch. "Don't see why not. Fathers love their sons, brothers. Hell, horses do it. Even pigs probably have some affection for one another, as muddy as it may be."

Sean pushed aside sun-kissed hair. "There's no filth in this."

"Perhaps not the easiest thing, though. For us," Viggo said, dark look returning, "or others."

"Hell on the hide," Sean said, trying to force the light back into Viggo's face.

Viggo smiled, pushed past the last of whatever he felt was standing between them, kissed a rough cheek, an ear, whispered, "tangles like a sonofabitch."


End file.
